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U.S. stocks end week with a whimper, book a weekly loss after realization that the hawkish-er Yellen actually said absolutely nothing different from what she said last week, and investors are really hanging on by a thread. The DOW closed up 113 points with Nike, up 8.9%, contributing 68 points while Nasdaq Composite sees a 2.9% weekly decline. The number of U.S. rigs (oil and gas) fell four more over the last week to 838. The number has fallen 1,093 from a year ago.

Todays S&P 500 Chart

Today's early rise was because the NYA Index was into oversold territory yesterday, so we saw an oversold bounce today. The Large caps were mostly flat at the close while the small caps were down 1%.

As we showed earlier, at this point any debate whether or not the S&P500 is driven purely by the "outside money" injected by the Fed, is over: financial markets are now down since the end of QE3, while cash is the only asset that is rising because the Fed is no longer actively debasing the US currency (it will again, but not right now). Feel free to ignore and/or mock any so-called expert who still idiotically argues it is anything but money printing.

But while we know what happened in the past, what everyone wants to know is what will happen, and whether the recent correction will morph into a far more serious bear market (such as the one that just slammed the recently bubbly biotech sector).

Here, according to BofA's Michael Hartnett, are the key bear market catalysts that everyone should be watching.

1. Peak in liquidity

QE & zero rates reflated financial assets significantly. The only assets that QE did not reflate were cash, volatility, the US dollar and banks. Cash, volatility, the US dollar are all outperforming big-time in 2015, which tells you markets have been forced to discount peak of global liquidity/higher Fed funds. Frequent flash cashes (oil, UST, CHF, bunds, SPX) tell the same story. Peak in liquidity = peak of excess returns = trough in volatility.

WOLFSBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Volkswagen named company veteran Matthias Mueller as its chief executive on Friday as the German carmaker struggles to get to grips with a crisis over rigged diesel emission tests that its chairman called "a moral and political disaster".

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy expanded more than previously estimated in the second quarter on stronger consumer spending and construction, backing the case for an interest rate rise before the end of the year despite data sounding a note of caution for September. < ...

Pullback in Margin Debt is healthy... unless it signifies the start of a larger decline.

In our post yesterday on household stock investment, we discussed what we call "background indicators". These various investment metrics describe the longer-term conditions in the marketplace, but are not catalysts themselves. Thus, we consider them to be measures of potential risk should a catalyst come along to trigger a decline. In that case, the potential risk begins to manifest itself in actual risk. Considering it is near its all-time highs, we consider household stock investment to carry significant potential risk. Another background indicator signaling the same is NYSE margin debt.

Margin debt refers to the amount of money borrowed for the purposes of leveraging a stock position. The higher the level of margin debt, the more leverage in the system - and the greater the amount of potential risk. As of April this year, NYSE margin debt was at an all-time high at more than $500 billion. Over the past few months, the level has moderated a bit. After August's market rout, margin debt sat at $473 billion, down 6.7% from the highs.

So is this a healthy pullback in potential risk? Or is it a beginning of a larger trend whereby more potential risk will become actualized risk? There ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Caterpillar Inc's suppliers were feeling the pain of slumping sales at the world's largest mining and construction equipment maker long before it announced an extensive cost-cutting program.

With NKE almost single-handedly holding The Dow up, the rest of the US equity market is rapidly giving back any gains from a hawkish Yellen and 'fixed' European automaker market. Notably, Dec rate-hike odds were 41% pre-Yellen, jumped to 49% earlier this morning, but have now fallen back to 42%... so the 'market' is not "embracing" a rate hike environment as one supposed expert said this morning...and the Biotech bloodbath is weighing everything down...

The convoy would have been curious enough on its own, but the fact that the vehicles were stationed in the Catalan capital ahead of what amounts to an independence referendum piqued our interest and we asked if perhaps the Bank of Spain was preparing for any and all contingencies. According to the Bank of Spain itself, our suspicions were unfounded as "nothing extraordinary happened [on Wednesday] in the building of Banco de EspaÃ±a in Barcelona."

"By the way," the central bank added, "there is no gold in this site of Banco de EspaÃ±a in Barcelona."

Maybe not, and perhaps nothing was amiss, but this Sunday's plebiscite in Catalonia is worth watching closely as it could very well represent the next European black swan.

To be sure, we've long said that in the wake of Greece's latest bailout negotiations, political events in Spain and Portugal have the potential to further destabilize the EMU. Regional elections in May signaled a growing disaffection among Spanish voters with the status quo and seemed to telegraph a shift towards parties whose election promises mirror those which helped Syriza sweep to power in Greece earlier this year.

In Barcelona for instance, the anti-poverty, anti-eviction activist Ada Colau (who leads Barcelona En ComÃº) was elected mayor in what she called a victory "for David over Goliath."

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